


On As Before

by orbythesea



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbythesea/pseuds/orbythesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He kisses her, after their first semester Property final.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On As Before

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Childish Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/195091) by [orbythesea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbythesea/pseuds/orbythesea). 



>   
> _Maybe it shows,_  
>  She's had clues, which she chose to ignore.  
> Maybe though she knows,  
> And just wants to go on as before.  
> As a friend, nothing more  
> So she closes the door.  
> -Stephen Sondheim, _What Can You Lose?_  
> 

He kisses her, after their first semester Property final. It's stupid and he knows it, but he's wanted to kiss her since that afternoon back in September when he dragged her away from her Civ Pro casebook.

"It'll be great," he promised her. "Really, really great." They drove east of the river and ate fish and chips in the shadow of the world's largest chair, sitting together on the hood of his aging 5-series. Later, when the car wouldn't start, she looped her arm through his as they made their way to the Anacostia station and refused to listen as he tried to apologize. Sitting together on the train home, she told him that he'd probably saved her from going gray before she turned twenty-five. Giant furniture, they decided, was the antidote to law school.

That was September, and now it's December and they're just two of a few dozen GULC students in the basement at Irish Times tonight. They're sipping Guinness out of plastic cups, leaning against a wall in an out-of-the-way corner, and she's back to a post-mortem evaluation of her exam performance.

"Alicia," he says, laughing. "You're going to drive yourself crazy if you keep this up."

She ignores him, or maybe she doesn't hear him, but she keeps talking. "But I feel like my discussion of easement by estoppel could have been stronger, so-- "

He kisses her. When she doesn't immediately return the kiss, he tells himself that if she pushes him away, he'll blame it on the Guinness. Only she doesn't push him away.

After what could be a second or a minute, he's about to pull away himself but then she's kissing him back. He slides his free hand into her hair, thumb stroking her cheek and she moves closer, breasts and belly and thighs and knees pressing against him until he forgets what the hell easement by estoppel even means.

When she moans, a soft little sound that comes from the back of her throat, it reverberates down his spine and threatens to undo him completely. And then she is pulling away.

"Will," she whispers, and he's dizzy and breathless and half hard and in love and the blood in his ears is pounding so loudly that he can barely hear her. "Will," she repeats, stepping back.

"Alicia," he breathes, giddy enough that he thinks maybe he can ignore the way she's not smiling.

"This is a bad idea," she says. Her hands are shaking and Guinness threatens to slosh over the rim of her cup at any moment.

"Alicia," he says again, reaching out to steady her hands but she pulls away.

"No, don't, just-- We'll talk later, okay?" She turns to go, and all he can do is watch as she pushes her way through the mass of drunk-and-sweaty 1Ls.

*

Two days later, and they haven't talked.

He's trying his best to be inconspicuous as he weaves through Union Station when he spots her walking through the main hall with a massive rolling suitcase. He's got his own bags -- two duffels and his briefcase -- but he rushes forward to offer to help her anyway.

"Will," she says, blinking at him. "What are you--?"

"My ride to the airport fell through," he says, still holding out a hand to take her bag.

"I've got it, thanks," she says, waving his hand away. "You look like you need help more than I do."

"Yeah, well." He chuckles.

"Amtrak," she offers, when the fact that neither of them is saying anything starts to get weird. "I thought that avoiding the airport at Christmas was a good idea."

Will nods. "I'm flying into Midway," he says. "At least I can avoid O'Hare."

"Is your dad picking you up, or are you and Helena...?" she asks, and suddenly they're not talking about travel arrangements.

"Helena," he admits, quietly. "Alicia, I-- "

"You have a girlfriend," she says, simply. "Chalk it up to too much Guinness and everything goes back to normal in January."

It's not what he wants. He wants to tell her that if she says the word he'll walk to the nearest pay phone and tell Helena to stay home, that he's in love with someone else and that's all there is to it. He wants to drop his bags and pull her into his arms and kiss her right there in the middle of Union Station. Before he gets the chance to tell her that he doesn't want to take the out, she's started walking again.

"I have to go, my train-- " she says. "I'll see you in January."

*

This should be better than it is.

Helena's a good lay. No. Helena's a great lay. Helena's one of those girls who has no shame about her body or her libido and knows exactly how to use both to her advantage. Helena's a fantastic lay.

She's not the prettiest girl he's dated, and God knows she's not as smart as Alicia, but she's bright enough and sexy as hell and, in a way, he likes that he can win every argument. What's more, she likes him and doesn't seem to mind that his nose is too big and that, most of the time, it's stuck in a casebook.

He's home after the most hellish, exhilarating, exhausting, wonderful three months of his life and he's got this sexy, confident girlfriend and yeah, okay, this is the fourth time they've fucked since he got back yesterday, and maybe he was in better shape before he started spending so much time in the library with Alicia, but he's still in good shape and he's still a young guy and she really is a fantastic lay so there's no reason -- no reason -- that he should be having trouble with this. There's no reason that he should be done before he's _done_ but when she rolls her hips in a way that normally makes him crazy it barely registers.

He slides his hand between them to circle her clit because maybe if he can make her come again she won't notice if he doesn't. She squeals in what he hopes is delight and he wonders idly if Alicia would be so vocal. Somehow, he doesn't think so. Alicia's the kind of girl who thinks before she speaks. She might even think before she breathes, for all he knows. She's the kind of girl who doesn't give up control easily, never concedes a fight until it's over and that's the sort of thing so ingrained in a person that he doubts she really just lets go, even in bed.

Alicia's not the kind of girl to wake the neighbors, but maybe little sighs would escalate into soft, breathy moans. She wouldn't grunt, but maybe, if his fingers or teeth or tongue found the right spot, he could make her whimper or gasp or groan his name. He thinks about the taste of Guinness on her lips when kissed her, the way her body melded into his. How perfectly her knees fit into the space below his own, how soft her breasts felt pressing against his chest, that tiny little moan from the back of her throat and oh _God_ \--

Well. He's probably a pig, but at least he isn't bored anymore.

*

He can't stop thinking about her.

Helena's out, something about her sister and groceries and he wasn't really listening because he doesn't even care about shopping for himself. He's peeling the label of his fourth bottle of Goose Island and he's not drunk but he's buzzed enough to let him think that he might just have the balls to say "I love you," for the first time in his life.

He takes the cordless phone outside and dials the numbers for her mom's house, hugging himself against the cold.

"Yeah?" The voice on the other end of the phone is male and young. It catches him off guard, even as he tells himself that it's probably her brother but somehow, when he imagined it, it was her picking up, her saying 'hello' her--

"Yeah, is, um. Is Alicia there?" He doesn't like the way he hesitates.

"Maybe. Who's calling?" Owen, that's her brother's name.

"Will," he says. "I'm her-- I'm just a friend. From Georgetown. Is she--?"

"--Out with Eric from BU," Owen says, and there's a hint of a lilting sing-song in his voice that makes Will think that he's teasing him.

"Oh." The phone call isn't going at all the way it did in his head. "Then would you… tell her I phoned?"

"Oh, I can't _wait._ " Yeah, Owen's definitely teasing him and it makes Will feel sick inside.

He sets the phone down and finishes his beer and tries to think about anything else when he remembers that she used to date a guy named Eric.

When she calls back the next day, Helena's hovering over him and their conversation is stilted and awkward and he resolves to get over Alicia once and for all.

*

January comes, finally, and Alicia has the grace not to mention the weird phone call just after Christmas. She doesn't say anything about getting back together with her ex, either, so he's feeling pretty good about everything. They fall back into their familiar patterns, moving from classes to the library to the little all-night diner with the waitress they like and it works.

When OCI starts, Alicia treats it as seriously and methodically as she treats their classes, and it turns out she didn't screw up Property after all, so it's no surprise that she gets more interviews than he does.

When they're not in class, she spends most of the spring in a skirt and heels as she moves from interview to interview. They're still studying together, but her afternoons are increasingly full and it's not like he's some lovesick puppy or anything, so he fills the time playing baseball in a casual, not-quite-league made up of law students, a few PhD candidates, two congressional interns, and a guy from _Roll Call_.

It feels good to get back to it, to do something that he loved before he loved her. (No, he has to remind himself himself, that's wrong. Something that he loved before he _met_ her.) He's a damn good pitcher, and most of the guys he plays with don't have the benefit of four years of college ball so he holds back, most of the time.

Sometimes, though, when he's got a game and she's not interviewing, she follows him down to the Mall or whatever schoolyard they've claimed for the afternoon and sits in the bleachers or along the first base line with a casebook open in her lap. The first time she does it, he pitches his first no-hitter since junior year.

Afterward, in a little dive of a bar on Second, they're drinking and sharing an order of wings and someone has put money in the jukebox and he thinks _why not_? He's screwing up his courage when Kenny -- _Kenny_ \-- reaches out a hand to her.

"I know you've already done the reading for Torts so there's absolutely no reason for you to be sitting here instead of dancing with me," Kenny informs her, and Alicia laughs.

She lets him pull her up and over to the little _de facto_ dance floor and Will can't take his eyes off her as she sways and spins, all smiles.

"I'm a better dancer than Kenny," he mutters when she sinks back into her chair after the song ends.

"Yeah, but you've got a girlfriend," she shoots back.

_That's why not._

*

Somehow, and he's not quite sure how he let it happen, they don't end up in the same city for the summer. He's not planning to stay in Washington, but then he gets an offer from Williams & Connolly, and she tells him in no uncertain terms that he'd be an idiot to turn it down.

He politely refuses to point out that she turned down an offer from Cravath, because he knows how it killed her to say no. Still, she had a real reason to turn it down, and a good one at that. Her brother's at DePaul and had planned to go back to Boston for the summer, but then her mom's new boyfriend moved in, and apparently there are issues there that may or may not have to do with homophobia. So Owen's staying in Chicago, and she abandons her plans to spend the summer in New York.

She takes an offer from a Chicago firm and flies off to help her brother pay the rent on a summer sublet and it just about kills him, because she's going to be in his city for the summer and he won't. He lets her fly away with a couple of recommendations for pizza joints and bars and that's that.

He does manage to get home for a few days, though, long enough to kiss his mom on the cheek and break up with Helena because, really, it's time. He's got it all planned out, break up with Helena in May, save a bit of money over the summer so he can get his car running again, ask Alicia out in September, and it won't be a rebound thing then, and it won't be so obvious that he broke up with Helena _for her_.

He waits until he's back in Washington to mention it, casually slipping it into a phone conversation, and she's appropriately sympathetic and he can't stop smiling because, finally, he feels like he's got a _plan._

Three weeks later, she mentions Peter Florrick's name for the first time, and he's still so high on his plan that doesn't think anything of it.

*

By the beginning of August, he's finally got his car fixed, and the plan is really starting to come together because it's marked on his calendar that she'll be back on the 14th and he can surprise her with a ride home.

"I'll come out and meet you at the airport," he says. "Help you carry your bags. What time does your plane--"

"Will, I-- I'm not flying," she says, and it's the first he's heard of it.

"Train, then, I'll walk down to Union Station to-- "

"We're driving back," she says, cutting him off. "Peter's taking a long weekend and we're driving out together so we don't have to say goodbye at the airport."

He doesn't know what to say to that, but for the first time all summer, it hits him that all of his planning might be for naught because of some ASA she met at a party back at the end of June. He thinks back over all their phone conversations, the number of times she said she had to go, the way all of her stories that didn't involve the office involved Peter, the way he didn't want to think about what that meant, because he had a _plan._

"Well, I'll… see you when I see you then," he mumbles and this time he's the one saying that he has to go.

*

Peter or no Peter, he decides to stick to the plan, because it's a good one, because she's only been dating the guy for a couple of months and it's not like Alicia's the kind of girl who lets a summer fling get serious.

She was supposed to be in late Friday night, but she doesn't call until Saturday afternoon and they agree to meet for dinner at Lauriol Plaza. He knows that Peter will be there, that it will be the three of them, but he's okay with that. He's okay with it right up until the moment that he walks in the door and she's got her arms wrapped around this big, hulking figure of a guy and doesn't seem to mind that he's got his tongue down her throat.

He clears his throat and she pulls away and she's smiling, smiling so big that he can forget that she was just kissing someone else. She pulls him into a hug and he can feel Peter's eyes boring holes into the back of his head but it doesn't fucking matter because he's leaving tomorrow and she's staying here, staying with him.

Things start to go downhill when they sit down, when she and Peter sit too close together on their side of the booth, when he catches her sneaking glances at Peter, the way he used to catch her sneaking glances at him. For his part, Will keeps sneaking glances at Alicia, but every time he manages to tear his eyes away, Peter's glaring at him and he feels like some kind of third wheel.

"He's great, isn't he?" she asks, when Peter excuses himself to the men's room.

"Yeah, he's… really something," Will mumbles. The truth is, he doesn't think Peter's great. The truth is, he thinks Peter's a pompous jerk with a smile that makes Will feel like he needs to go take a shower. But Alicia's expecting something, so he takes a gulp of his margarita and nods. "He's great," he says, and it hurts -- it actually _hurts_ \-- to say it.

"I know, I'm just-- " she grins. "I'm so glad you guys got to meet each other, he's-- " Her grin fades to a shy smile and she brushes a curl behind her ear. "I've never been in love before," she says, softly, and Will can barely keep himself from rolling his eyes, because there's no way that she's _actually_ in love.

"I'm happy for you," he says, practically choking on the words, but then Peter comes back and she just lights up.

It hits him over dessert that she wasn't kidding. Alicia's actually, really, seriously, absolutely-for-real in love.

He starts to make a new plan, a plan that will lead to her and Peter breaking up, and it will mean putting off their first date until December, but that's okay, because he's waited this long. As soon as the plan is formed, he abandons it, because it occurs to him that it's not just that Alicia's in love. Alicia's _happy_ in love.

When they part for the night, he pulls her into a hug and kisses her cheek and he tells himself _enough._ Enough.


End file.
